Africa Finance & Private Sector Department (AFTFP) has initiated a major research program on Africa’s Industry Competitiveness entitled “Strategies to Leverage the New Global Economy.” The objective of this program is to inform policies and institutional approaches by which African countries can improve their competitiveness to help achieve sustained and inclusive economic growth. The research defines competitiveness as the firms’ ability to enhance its performance in domestic and international markets. Competitiveness is driven by productivity and innovation as well as by factor and transaction costs in host countries. There is broad agreement that economic growth depends crucially on integration into global markets. Competitive exposure to global good practices contributes in a major way to the improvement of economy-wide total factor productivity and thus to higher living standards. There is also a broad consensus that success on…